Our first contribution was pioneering the use of Boltz-2 to model proteins and provide computational predicted Kd values. Boltz-2 is a new de-novo based protein design software that has all the modeling capabilities of AlphaFold3 while also permitting users to model binding to a wide variety of possible substrates. Boltz2 even permits users to make a foray into de-novo protein design.
Due to these advanced functionalities we predict that Boltz2 will soon be a mainstay in iGEM teams, so we have begun to build the iGEM knowledge base and show future teams potential uses for Boltz2. And in order to contribute to this we have added a guide on how to use Boltz2 in collaboration with cloud computng softwares.
A second part of our contributions are those we made to synthetic biology at Northeastern. Our project was based in the newly opened Wet Lab makerspace on campus. This is a space created in order to facilitate the execution of biology projects at Northeastern and it is open to all those at the university. However the space is fairly new and as such had not been "tested" by a student group. NU-iGEM was the first student group to operate at scale in the makerspace.
This afforded us the fantastic opportunity to begin creating SOP's and training for equipment and process in the makerspace. Due to our contributions we were able to advocate for a change in the materials the lab stocks in order to more effectively complete desired protocols. We were also able to lay the framework for student organizations creating their own training while successfully integrating into the required training for the makerspace.
We hope that we have left the makerspace a more effective teaching space.
The workshop powerpoints are attached here. The workshops included an introduction to the design process common in synthetic biology and then went over protocols common in synthetic biology. The materials were given to interested and potential members before being passed over to the wet lab makerspace for incorporation into their training materials.